Santa Monicas Head Wish List of Funding for Parks, Wild Lands : Conservation: An environmental coalition urges $30 million for the local recreation area. It wants Congress to spend $1.2 billion nationwide.

A national coalition of environmental groups has called on Congress to spend $1.23 billion next year to expand the nation’s public parks and wild lands, and urged more funding for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area--$30 million--than for any other park.

In an annual report aimed at influencing budget deliberations, the Wilderness Society and 26 other groups asked lawmakers to provide $1.032 billion in acquisition funds to key land-management agencies--the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The report, issued earlier this month, requested $200 million in matching funds for state and local park agencies during the next fiscal year.

The wish list of 361 acquisition projects includes 38 in California, more than in any other state. The report sought $13 million for Channel Islands National Park, $3 million to expand the East Mojave National Scenic Area in northeastern San Bernardino County, $2 million to acquire wetlands in San Diego Bay, $6 million for additions to the Cleveland National Forest in San Diego County, and $16 million for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the San Francisco area.

But the $30 million for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was the most requested for any park or wildlife area, reflecting its half-finished state and the high cost of land in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Large appropriations are needed because “of what the land values are in the Los Angeles area. The land prices are just very great and getting steeper the more we go along and don’t buy this land,” said Donald Hellmann, legislative counsel for the Wilderness Society.

“It would be wonderful if we could get that $30 million,” said Jean Bray, spokeswoman for the national recreation area, which is a unit of the National Park Service. “We could . . . work toward completing the land acquisition and get on with the work that the National Park Service is here to do, and that’s protect the resources as well as accommodate the visiting public.”

The national recreation area covers 150,000 acres from Griffith Park in Los Angeles to Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County. It is actually a mosaic of federal, state and local parklands interspersed with private holdings.

Since 1979, the Park Service has spent about $100 million to buy 17,475 acres for the recreation area--halfway to the ultimate goal of 35,000 acres in federal ownership. Annual appropriations most years have ranged between $1 million and $12 million.

Next year’s acquisition budget is expected to be considerably leaner than that sought by the environmental coalition, whose members include the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation and the National Audubon Society in addition to the Wilderness Society.

Last year, for example, the coalition sought $1.164 billion for land purchases and matching funds for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, but Congress appropriated $316.9 million.

Moreover, the environmentalists’ $1.23-billion recommendation for Fiscal 1993 is more than triple the Bush Administration proposal of $366 million.

The Administration’s request includes $14 million for the national recreation area, slightly more than this year’s $13.8-million total for the Santa Monicas park. Congress, which frequently approves more park funding than the President requests, will not formulate its budget proposals until later in the year.

Though acknowledging that they face an uphill fight, environmental advocates said their request is justified. “The need is there to do this type of acquisition,” Hellmann said. “The question is whether Congress has the will to appropriate the money.”

Ben Beach, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society, noted that an obscure advisory panel created by the Reagan Administration--the Commission on Americans Outdoors--recommended spending $1 billion per year to preserve habitat and recreation areas.

“If his people thought that was appropriate, then we don’t think we’re out of line to say we think that’s about what ought to be spent every year,” Beach said. “Obviously, every year you delay, the price of land increases, and so we’re eager to see areas bought before, one, they’re gone, or two, they cost too much.”

Environmentalists said the money is available in the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which derives most of its revenue from offshore oil drilling royalties. The fund was created to tap environmentally risky projects for money to pay for conservation programs. Environmentalists have long complained that appropriations have been a mere fraction of revenues flowing into the fund.